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Comics Relief: ALL-NEW MARVEL News Galore, Plus Bad News For LUMBERJANES Fans, & More

In today’s Comics Relief, we’ve got news on the latest makeover for a popular member of the Green Lantern Corps, and some bad news for fans of BOOM! Studios’ Lumberjanes. But mostly today we’ve got a lot of announcements of several new Marvel series that the publisher is launching after Secret Wars wraps up, starting with a popular character taking over as Marvel’s #1 wall-crawler. Read on for more details…

MARVEL Announces Miles Morales In New Ongoing Spider-Man Series

Marvel made a lot of big announcements this week regarding their All-New, All-Different Marvel relaunch this September, but maybe the biggest is the launch of the new ongoing Spider-Man series, starring former Ultimate Universe (RIP) Spider-Man, bi-racial teenager Miles Morales. This book is simply being called Spider-Man, no adjectives, nothing signaling this as anything but the Marvel Universe’s new main wall-crawler.

The series will be by the former Ultimate Spider-Man creative team of Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli, who created Miles back in 2011. Morales will reportedly be the primary Spider-Man in the “All-New All Different Marvel” universe, with Peter Parker acting as his mentor. On the cover for the first issue, you can see the “Parker Industries” sign below, so it doesn’t look like Marvel plans to kill Peter again this time.

Of the new series Brian Bendis said, “Many kids of color who when they were playing superheroes with their friends, their friends wouldn’t let them be Batman or Superman because they don’t look like those heroes but they could be Spider-Man because anyone could be under that mask. But now it’s true. It’s meant a great deal to a great many people.”

No release date has been given yet for Spider-Man #1, but it is expected to hit this October. [NY Daily News]

Mark Waid & Adam Kubert Bring us the All-New, All-New Different Avengers This October

The new Spidey is hardly the only big Marvel announcement this week, with the publisher also officially announcing the launch of All-New, All-Different Avengers #1 this fall.  Written by Mark Waid and illustrated by Adam Kubert and Mahmud Arsar, this is truly a new generation of Avengers; all that remains of the classic membership is Tony Stark as Iron Man and the android Vision, as well as Sam Wilson as Captain America (Wilson was an Avenger back when he was the Falcon). They are joined by Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan), Miles Morales as Spidey, Jane Foster as Thor, and the newest Nova, Sam Alexander.

This team is the most diverse line-up of the Avengers ever, with Tony Stark being the only white male on the team. Of the new team, writer Mark Waid says, “One of the Avengers’ often-undiscussed ‘superpowers’ has always been Tony Stark’s boundless fortune. As readers of Brian Bendis’s upcoming Invincible Iron Man will see, Tony can no longer be the team’s sole financial resource–meaning that our Avengers will have to operate a little more modestly and with limits to their resources, making their battles even more challenging.”

The first issue of All-New, All-Different Avengers hits this October, with a cover by Alex Ross.

Noelle Stevenson Announces Departure from Lumberjanes

Bad news for fans of BOOM! Studios’ hit series Lumberjanes: writer Noelle Stevenson has announced this week via Twitter that she will no longer the lead writer on the popular series. Her final issue will be Lumberjanes #17 in August. Kat Leyh, who was already announced as a guest artist on issue #17, will take up co-writing with Shannon Watters, Stevenson’s current writing partner. Stevenson says that she will remain available to the creative team as a consultant, but that she trusts them to do right by the characters. [Comic Book]

Comixology has IDW’s Ghostbusters at 50% off

Ghostbusters is a property that’s getting a lot of attention lately, with a female led big-screen reboot coming next summer, and (maybe?) a spin-off featuring America’s favorite male stripper, Channing Tatum. But the classic Ghostbusters has been chugging along for the last few years over at IDW Comics in a series from the creative team of Erik Burnham and Dan Schoening. Now their run is on sale at Comixology right now with the collections of Volumes 1-9 at 50% off. Their run on the comic doesn’t just draw from the two original movies, but from the video games as well, not to mention the ’80s animated series. The sale runs through June 29th. [Comics Alliance]

Doctor Strange Gets His Own Ongoing Series For the First time in 20 years

Although introduced as one of the original, principal Marvel heroes created by Stan Lee in the sixties, and headlined his own popular comic book from the seventies through the mid eighties, it’s been a long time since Doctor Strange headlined his own ongoing comic book series, since 1996 in fact. Well, with a big movie coming from Marvel Studios soon, we all knew that would probably change, and as part of All-New Marvel this Fall, the Sorcerer Supreme will be getting his own series once more from the creative team of Thor and Star Wars writer Jason Aaron and Uncanny X-Men artist Chis Bachalo.

According to editor Nick Lowe, “a lot of Doctor Strange stories, they’re trippy and cool, but they live a lot in the head. And I think what this series does is it lives more in the heart and in the gut. And this is a Doctor Strange who is much more relatable, and way funnier.” The new Doctor Strange book is expected to hit in October. [Nerdist]

 

Guy Gardner: Green Red Christmas Lantern?

It’s not ALL Marvel news this week; in DC news, one of the long-running and more popular members of the Green Lantern Corps, ginger hothead Guy Gardner, just got a little bit of a makeover. He has been dubbed the “Christmas Lantern” by fellow GL John Stewart, for wielding not only a Green power ring, but also a red one too. Does this mean he has to be both willful and angry for the rings to work? (actually, that sounds like a lot of people I know in real life.) This all happened in the new Green Lantern: The Lost Army series, which debuted this week and features members of the GL Corps stranded in a remote part of space. Series writer Cullen Bunn confirmed that Guy Gardner would be joining the book and that it would “shake things up a bit” for John Stewart’s interstellar team. [Newsarama]

Veteran Illustrator Earl Norem Dies at 91

And a bit of sad news as our last item today, painter Earl Norem, who was well known for his series of covers for Marvel Comics in the seventies and eighties, passed away this past week at the age of 91. At Marvel he produced covers for titles like Dracula Lives, Savage Sword of Conan, The Hulk, Amazing Spider-Man, The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, The Silver Surfer and many others. But maybe more than his Marvel work, Earl Norem’s art was known to a generation of kids as being the primary artist behind most media representations of Mattel’s He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, painting everything from book and magazine covers to lunch boxes and posters. Although mostly retired, Norem was working on illustrations for an upcoming Mars Attacks trading card set at the time of his death. [Newsarama]

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